


Natural-e

by chennieforyourthoughts



Series: the captain and his crew [2]
Category: Stray Kids, Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Exchange Student Seungmin, Food, M/M, Seungmin is one of those people with backpacks full of stationary from MUJI, kind of a sick fic?, pure and utter fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-02
Updated: 2017-11-02
Packaged: 2019-01-28 13:46:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12607956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chennieforyourthoughts/pseuds/chennieforyourthoughts
Summary: "Felix-ah, this is Seungmin. Please take care of him and don’t let him die alone and he’ll help you with logarithms." Nowthatwas the kind of hello one needed to get Felix’s attention.





	Natural-e

**Author's Note:**

> This is what I spent my free period doing, I guess. 
> 
> [(Fanfic Disclaimer + More ♥)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chen_CHING/profile)

“Felix-ah, this is Seungmin. Please take care of him and don’t let him die alone and he’ll help you with logarithms.” Now _that_ was the kind of hello one needed to get Felix’s attention. He looked up with a jolt to find Byungchan standing in front of his library table, a student he’d never seen before at his side. “Seungmin-ah,” Chan began to address the boy, and Felix lost track of the conversation as it progressed in Korean. “Like I said, Felix. I’ll be watching you.” This so-called Seungmin watched in what Felix guessed was despair as Byungchan left, en route to his next class.

“Hello, I’m Felix,” he greeted, and Seungmin startled. “Ah, sorry. You must be Chan’s exchange student?” Seungmin pointed at the paper Felix had been working on, something on the symbolism in _The Great Gatsby,_ and shook his head. _“Oh,_ you don’t speak English. Well, my Korean’s terrible, so we’re going to have to figure something out.” Felix pulled the chair next to him out, and Seungmin gratefully took it. He moved with a grace Felix hadn’t seen before, and even though he wasn’t exceptionally tall Seungmin carried himself with a soft presence that the other envied. It was quieter than his own, and Felix had a brief moment of panic in which he wondered if they’d get along at _all._

But then Seungmin pulled out a math textbook, and even though it was in Korean Felix could recognize the common language of exponents and logarithms. Seungmin squinted at one of the problems on the worksheet set to Felix’s right, and Felix noticed it was a problem he had circled to come back to. When the new student’s hand hovered over his pencil case, Felix encouraged him to take what he wanted from it. What he didn’t expect, however, was for Seungmin to pull a notebook from his bag and copy down the problem, settling into the rhythm of the work. As Felix watched, Seungmin translated from the logarithms he knew how to do into the logarithms in the language he’d learned into an explanation for the problem. _“He’ll help you with logarithms,”_ Byungchan had said, and Felix realized that, as always, he had been right.

Next to the math, Seungmin jotted down a few notes. They were single words, but the carefully scrawled “base” and “change” and “to exponent” were enough to give Felix an idea of how the problem had been solved. “Wow,” he murmured when Seungmin handed him the sheet. “Thank you!” Seungmin nodded, selecting a book from his book and starting to read. Felix ran through the steps the other had solved the problem in and figured out that he’d messed up on the base change.

His free period soon ended, and Felix realized that he didn’t know where Seungmin was supposed to go. “Seungmin, do you know where you should go now?” The exchange student paused in packing his bag to lift Felix’s Pre-Calculus textbook. “Pre-Calculus?” At the other’s nod, Felix knew why Chan had made him Seungmin’s guide for the moment; they were headed to the same class. “Oh, me too! We can sit together, because my old tablemate left the class.”

On the way to their class, Felix sent Byungchan a text. _Hey, does Seungmin speak English or just write in it?_

_He knows more English than he lets on, but he mostly uses it to write about math. Apparently he wants to major in something math-related. Now, shouldn’t you two be in class?_

Indeed they were supposed to be in class, so they had to sprint down the hallway to make it before the teachers finished calling attendance.

True to Byungchan’s word, Seungmin was a math whiz. Even with the lectures being in a language Seungmin wasn’t comfortable in, the exchange student was able to take notes (Felix would later swear they were in the neatest Hangul he had ever seen) and answer the class’s questions in the same way he had answered Felix’s. After class, when Chan arrived to take Seungmin back, he waved goodbye to Felix and the other returned the gesture. “Will he be back tomorrow?” Felix asked, and Byungchan was quick to assuage his worry.

“Yup, every math class for the rest of this semester.”

Logarithms had never before seemed as interesting as Felix found them that night.

 

The next morning was different. It’d only been a matter of time, Felix knew, until it was his turn to contract the plague that was spreading through the school. He’d still tried to go to his classes (he had math that morning, and he wasn’t about to miss it) but been practically grounded by his parents. So, curled up on his bed once again, he mentally bemoaned both the amount of work he would have to catch up on and the “idiots who went to school sick and got everyone else sick,” of which he would have been one.

It was close to two in the afternoon when Felix’s phone vibrated on his nightstand, rousing him from an uneasy dream. _I’m stopping by after school,_ Chan had written.

 _Don’t,_ Felix responded, _I don’t want to give you the plague as well._ His fever had yet to break, and although eating something sounded like the very _last_ thing he wanted to do Felix pushed himself from his room and to the fridge.

 _Tha_ _t's_ _sweet, but don’t worry; I won’t be spending that much time. Just dropping some things off._ Felix snorted— only Byungchan would use semicolons in a text message.

 _What time will you be here?_ While waiting for a response, Felix grabbed the first thing he found which appeared even vaguely appetizing— a strawberry yogurt— and forced himself to sit at the table as he ate it. His family had all left the house, so he was left alone in the echoing rooms. _Everyone ditched me, and I’m bored._

_You could do work?_

_Hell no._ Felix shivered, but he wasn’t sure if it was from how cold everything was or from Byungchan’s suggestion. Thinking back on it, a refrigerated yogurt probably hadn’t been the best idea, but at least it would settle his stomach.

_Tell Minnie that, he’ll definitely reprimand you for it even if you’re older._

_Minnie?_

Felix’s spoon scraped the plastic bottom of the cup, and he dragged himself to the sink to wash it out and toss the plastic into the recycling and the spoon into the dishwasher. _Seungminnie._

That was what Felix had thought. Although it was completely irrational, an unpleasant feeling besides the general nausea settled in his stomach. _If I started calling him that, would you stop?_

Felix could hear Byungchan laughing even from his house. _Oh boy, is someone jealous already?_ A pause, and then, _Don’t worry, I’m not interested._

_Good._

Having lost the energy to move again, Felix fell asleep in the wooden kitchen chair.

“Be careful, okay? If you get sick, you’ll have to stay with Felix.” Felix’s entire body screamed in protest as he came back to the world of the living, hushed Korean coming from directly before him. Sure enough, Chan and Seungmin had pulled up seats and were watching him. “Oh, Felix! You’re awake. We were debating on moving you back to your bedroom, but thought it might wake you.”

“You should’ve,” Felix groaned, dropping his head into his hands. Seungmin seemed surprised by how wrecked his voice had become, but Chan barely batted an eye.

“Here, I got you some cough drops and a few things that will supposedly open your airways. I have practice in a few minutes, so I have to get going, but Minnie will stay with you if you’d like.”

Once Byungchan left, Seungmin took a glance around the kitchen before lifting his backpack from goodness-knows-where. From it he took a neat, white-bound notebook, on the front of which appeared to be a sentence in Korean. Looking at it, Felix thought he recognized the characters for his name, and when Seungmin urged him to open it he was sure that it was for him.

Inside were the most beautiful pages of notes Felix had seen.

Sure, Seungmin’s notes had previously been neat, but these could be classified as nothing less than works of art. He’d used those fancy highlighters and pens Felix had noticed were in his bag to mark certain sections of utmost importance, and walked him step-by-step through the new concepts introduced in the class he’d missed. In the margins of each page, doodled animals made comments of things to keep in mind. And it was all in English.

“Chan hyung,” Seungmin said of the longer English notes.

“But the others were yours?”

“Yes, Felix…. hyung?”

 _Bang Chris Byungchan,_ Felix wrote to Chan later that evening, _my dearest hyung, have I told you how much I love you recently?_

_Don’t mention it, Felix-ah._

Felix chuckled, turning a page of the notebook in search of information that would help him with the assignments he had to turn in upon his return. Flipping a little too far past the section, he paused as he encountered notes on…. the British history of Australia?

_Oh, by the way, Seungmin-ah went to all of your classes today. You can thank Changbin for the jokes he put in on TGG._

And when Seungmin knocked on his door the next day, flushed and shivering, the first thing Felix had to say to him was:

_“Marry me?”_

**Author's Note:**

>  _One month later_  
>  Seungmin: Chan hyung? I trusted you.  
> Chan: ..........  
> Seungmin: You told me Felix was my hyung  
> Chan:  
> Chan: :3


End file.
